Many who have been hurt by sociopaths develop a general distrust of others. This distrust is understandable given how difficult it often is to tell if another person is a sociopath. However, going through life with distrust is not a pleasant way to live. Victims naturally then want to know in detail what sociopaths are about so they can identify the untrustables, and go back to trusting everyone else.
One of the purposes of this website is to describe sociopaths and teach people to identify them. Sociopaths are pathological liars who like to talk as experts on many topics. They manipulate others and generally have a high opinion of themselves. They also lack remorse for their actions and don’t seem to care about the pain they cause others. In fact they seem to enjoy inflicting all types pain (harm) on others.
The enjoyment of hurting another person is called sadism. Sadism usually refers to enjoying another’s physical pain. However, sociopaths enjoy inflicting all manner of pain on others including financial, emotional, psychological and social.
To sum it up sociopaths are in the business of reducing people to nothing and then taking glory in their accomplishment.
I have just described the most important “traits” of sociopaths. Many of you are saying, “Yes right on, that described mine exactly.” But are you satisfied?
You probably do not feel satisfied because you are left with wondering why. Why would someone do that? If you discover the answer to the “why question” you can go back to trusting everyone else again because you would understand the sick motives of sociopaths.
Normal people don’t enjoy watching other people suffer do they?
Here is where some get stuck, because many people secretly and not so secretly hope they live long enough to see the sociopath finally suffer. Well, if you can enjoy another’s suffering what makes you different from the sociopath?
If we examine the reasons why we would take pleasure in a sociopath’s suffering, we see there are two basic reasons. One is revenge and the other is our ability to consider the sociopath as “inhuman.” If a sociopath is not really human, then it is OK to enjoy that private moment of our imagined revenge.
There are therefore two basic routes to sadism. The first is through the power motive. Revenge is about reasserting power over someone who has robbed us of power. The power motive is also called the social dominance drive.
I am grateful to Caesar Milan the dog whisperer, for educating the public about dominance. We all know that a dominant dog has no problem inflicting pain on underlings to assert his dominance.
The second route to sadism is called “compartmentalization” by psychologists. A person who compartmentalizes has a motive (drive) to inflict pain on someone and so rationalizes it by saying that the other person is inhuman or “deserves it.”
Interestingly, both routes to sadism operate in sociopaths. Jack Levin and others have written a great deal about compartmentalization in sociopaths. Sociopaths are also ruled by the power motive and so enjoy hurting because it is confirmation they are achieving power.
That gets me to warped empathy. Many, including Jack Levin, have pointed to the faulty logic behind the idea that sociopaths lack empathy. If sociopaths lack empathy then how can they enjoy another’s suffering? If they can’t identify other’s emotions how can they know they are inflicting pain and so get enjoyment? Is there any question that the sociopath that hurt you knew you were suffering?
Most of us have seen clearly the sadism of sociopaths, so we know they must have some kind of warped empathy. Empathy should lead to sympathy with another’s suffering not pleasure in another’s suffering.
In 1982, while reporting the results of a very well done study in which he found that violent sociopaths of normal to high intelligence actually have increased empathy, Heilburn* made the following statement:
“One way to interpret these results would be in terms of a sadistic, effective-processing psychopathic model of violence in which inflicting pain or distress upon another is arousing and reinforcing (pleasurable). Such a model would assume that acts inflicting pain are more intentional than impulsive and that empathic skills promote arousal and sadistic reinforcement (pleasure) by enhancing the psychopath’s awareness of the pain and distress being experienced by the victim.”
Now in 2008 researchers have obtained results that confirm Heilburn’s theory.
Researcher Jean Decety from the University of Chicago found that young sociopath’s brains light up with pleasure when they experience another’s suffering. In this study, the pleasure was especially present when the suffering was being inflicted by another person. How did the researchers demonstrate this? They showed violent movie clips to sociopaths and non-sociopaths then used fMRI to scan their brains.
Most importantly, the study showed no abnormality of the brain pathways involved in empathy. Sociopath’s empathy centers appeared to function just fine.
So how can I help you feel comfortable trusting the 90% of the rest of humanity who are not significantly sociopathic when I have already said that that most people can be sadistic under certain circumstances?
The answer is found again with motives, specifically the power motive. Learn to recognize the signs of excessive power orientation. It is OK to want a certain amount of power, but the pursuit of interpersonal power should not occupy a person’s every waking moment.
Well balanced people enjoy love and affection more than they enjoy power and control. I encourage you to learn to tune into love motives in others. I have found that consciously choosing to notice loving behavior in others has also helped me better recognize the power motive.
Avoid people who dehumanize others because whether or not one who dehumanizes is a sociopath, this compartmentalization is an important contributor to man’s inhumanity to man.
Lastly, I encourage you to stop supporting violent entertainment with your consumer dollar. Such “entertainment” fosters the development of sociopathy in at-risk youth. It also brings out the worst in everyone else.
*Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 1982, Vol. 50, No. 4, 546-557
Wow, Presseject,
Your post describes my own journey as well. That picking peopole who are either abusive or “unavailable” is pretty true for most of my life. The only really good relationship I ever picked was my late husband (who died 4 yrs ago) and we had been good friends for 20 yrs prior to the marriage so that made our marriage a good one. Almost every relationship I have had otherwise was with someone who was either wounded by a P or was a person emotionally unavailable. I tended to shy away from married guys or cheating ones, because Ifigured (rightly) that if they would cheat on her, they’d cheat on me too. I didn’t however, select out the ones that HAD CHEATED as long as the relationship they had cheated in was over. My last P was a cheater and I knew it when I started dating him. I didn’t, in my defense, know it was such a pervasive pattern, but I knew he was a cheat on his wife was the reason for his divorce. I overlooked that “minor flaw” cause I thought “I was special” and he would “change his spots for me” LOL Boy was that desperation on my part! LOL
I am learning to set boundaries for others in my life that have in one way or another overstepped the boundaries, or go NC with them (whichever is appropriate to the situation) so having weeded out my garden of friends, the friendships with the ones I have kept is like a blooming and growing well tended garden. The “weeds” suck up so much of your energy that your “soil” doesn’t have the nutrients to nourish the good friendships and relationships. Just like vegetables growing among weeds are stunted, so are good friendships trying to grow among dysfunctional ones.
W O O M P F !
Henry good thing your not here because my Skillet would have a dent in it :)~ I LOVE HENRY JJ
I’m 6 months past the 2 yr nightmare with my ex. As time goes by, I discover crazy things about my ex from the woman prior before me. I am 100% sure my ex is a bad person. I was wavering for months that maybe he just needed time, etc. Nope. The pattern of abuse & cheating is the norm. He duped me into believing we would get married. He moved in. I depleted my live savings when he quit his job. I provided a car, food, you name it. Only to find out he had another woman all along.
Now today, the soon to be ex-wife told me that prior to her, he was with “1.” While with “1” he was screwing around with “2.” When “1” found out she forgave him and took him back. “1” eventually kicked him out & went with her “3.” While with “3,” he found me “4.” While with “4” he was also with “5.” When me “4” kicked him out, “5” forgave him and took him in. He’s with “5” now. Oh and this has all taken place over the past 6 years. He must have told both me and “5” there were no other women.
I also found out prior to “1” he was with a woman and cheated on her with her friend. He did not know the 2 knew eachother. He was confronted by them and that blew up in his face. I also found out, he was hit with sexual assault charges for molesting the friend’s daughter. The woman dropped the charges but we all know it was true.
I am soooo happy I contacted the soon-to-be ex wife and got ahold of this information. It just reinforces that the person I thought I knew was a piece of dirt and dangerous at that.
I see that women have “forgiven him” and took him back even after cheating. WHY DO WE DO THIS??? It enables these sick people to continue the game. If we women don’t take back cheaters & liars, then the madness may stop.
The plot thickens because I believe that “5” whom he is with now, was married when they met and left her husband for him. I believe he stayed with me 2 yrs and all the while she was going through the motions of leaving her husband and their setting up a home in town. Now that he’s anchored her ..he’s probably looking for number “6”. He’s also most likely cranked up the abuse cycle.
I’m glad I’m off that ride. I’m also glad I called the prosecutor and told my story of how I was being defrauded in him trying to steal my home and car.
This man has wreaked nothing but havoc in our community. He has no male friends at all. All his “friends” are weak women.
If any of you have an opportunity to speak with the woman who was prior to you, you may discover things that would make your stomachs turn. All the pain of losing that person would disappear..immediately!
Iwonder: Go to your search engine and put in:
Bible on-line. When you get to the site, look up
James 4: 8
Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you men of double mind.
That my Iwonder, is what the Bible tells us about sins committed of our EXs and others that are like them.
Peace.
hi Iwonder …
i have to disagree with one thing you wrote. these are not weak women. i don’t think any of these s/p’s pick weak women. i wasn’t weak and i know you weren’t either. they latch on to women who are strong and spirited and goodhearted and ethical and willing to be real. then they slowly whittle away at our spirits and souls as they steal all that we are, and we become weak. just my humble opinion.
seems to me that a truly weak woman could never give them all that they want, since what they want is endless. i used to call my ex the ‘hungry ghost’. there was no satisfying him no matter how much i did or how much i gave.
toward the end, i remember screaming at him: ”i do everything for you and you’re still not happy!?” his answer: ”it’s not enough!”
a weak woman would crumble in the first month. our spirits didn’t allow us to give up on someone who seemed so needy and adorable. our desire to be helpful toward the wrong people is perhaps our weakness.
i’m not saying we didn’t collaborate in our own oppression; i’m certain that we did. but it wasn’t because we were weak.
i’m sure in some circles we might look pretty pathetic. but because we have been through the valley of death with these f&#kers and came out on the other side — still alive, still trying, still willing to pick ourselves up and move forward — in my book that makes us …
invincible!
HI LIG! I guess what i was trying to relay was that my ex has no male friends so he picks on women..I wasn’t a weak woman either. I stood up that that @.......!$% and he hated it. He used to say, “you’re too tough for me.” Yeppur. I wasn’t a doormat. I was fighting him trying to mold me into what he wanted me to be…like a piece of playdough.
i used to stand up to mine, too. he’s say, ”you think you’re gonna get in my face like a dude?”
and to hurt me, when i’d get furious at him, he’d say, ”i think i need to find myself a female to be with.”
anything to make sure he came out being ‘right’ or having the upper hand. control freak from hell.
creep.
It occurred to me recently, that these Narcissists/psychopaths/sociopaths practice “UNCONDITIONAL HATE”. i.e., No-matter what anyone does for them. . . it’s never enough . . and if you haven’t done anything at all, they’ll fabricate something and accuse you of of it. . . just so they can hate you . . unconditionally.
lostingrief:
I do agree with you about them choosing strong women, and then they suck the strength out of you. They are parasites…
Mine screamed at me during one of his rages a couple of days after I gave birth that he didn’t want to see any tears but more strength out of me like the night I gave birth! I wasn’t allowed a moment of weakness…
Iwonder:
I know that why it didn’t work out with my ex was because I refused to be a doormat like you say, like the other women in his family (he wanted me to be just like his mother who was on the surface this very mild mannered woman who was miserable inside; his father said that when they were first married that he was going to “break her like a horse”). It was over once I stood up to him, even though I had just given birth to his child.
Sarah999: Yes, that unconditional hate…I am going through a divorce with mine right now and it is so shocking how he has turned everything on me when he is the one who kicked a woman out with her three children. He now makes me out to be this evil woman intent to do him in when he is the one who has turned my life upside down. It is sick …I still can’t get where such ill will even comes from…
Wow, that’s a really good way of putting it, Sarah… and SO true.
Isn’t it strange as well how they have that ability to make us feel as guilty as sin, when all we’re doing is trying to understand them and make sense of the twisted world they seem to inhabit?